by Vivian Wood
The footsteps get closer.
They’re too light and too soft to be his.
But why would he leave in the middle of that? He’s a terrible man, even more terrible than I thought.
The footsteps can’t be his, because they’re so light and measured.
The footsteps can’t be his.
The footsteps arrive at the doorway at the same time all the disarrayed puzzle pieces of my thoughts fit themselves together. I let go of the bedpost with a shriek and leap to the left. There’s nothing to the left to hide me. The door opens, and the air moves over my skin. Dress first. Dress first. Oh my God, I can’t get it down.
“Miss Persephone?”
It’s definitely not him, this woman with a soft, even voice, and I burst into flames and crumble into a burnt-up husk. When the flame recedes, I’m unfortunately left in my own body. Why won’t the dress come untwisted? How much worse could this possibly get? Maybe she hasn’t seen me. Maybe she’ll just leave.
“Let me help you with that.”
I blink at the bed, too frozen to turn around. Her footsteps come across the plush carpet behind me. Every step is amplified in my newly perished state. Then a pair of gentle hands untwists the dress and tugs it back into place. She, whoever she is, smooths it down at the hem with a touch that’s somehow professional in its intimacy. Next comes the gag. He tied a tight knot, no doubt to leave me in this exact situation. Frustrated tears wend their way down my cheeks. When is this going to stop? I was never a crier before. It was useless in the face of my mother.
It’s not useless to Hades. He likes it.
Which makes him far worse than my mother.
Then again....
The gag comes loose, and I turn around before I lose my scrap of nerve. The woman who helped me wears a long black skirt and a black vest over a white dress shirt—one of the maid uniforms I saw on the way in. She has eyes the color of cocoa and hair a few shades lighter. The maid folds the fabric that made up the gag as delicately as she might fold something precious and delicate. It’s not a precious item of clothing, I see now. It’s one of Hades’ ties from around his neck. She presses it into one of her pockets—out of sight, out of mind—and looks at me with a smile that reveals nothing. A knot at the center of my collarbone untwists. Her expression is far softer than Genie’s and less afraid.
“Good morning.” She extends a hand to me and we shake, like I’m not standing here in a dress that could be lingerie and she didn’t just help me hide my naked ass. “My name is Lillian. I’ll be your personal assistant.” She wrinkles her nose. “I think that has a nicer ring to it than maid. Though some of the people around here don’t think so.”
I drop my hands back in front of me. “You already know my name, I think.”
She nods slowly. “I do. But I don’t know anything else about you. Not much information was provided when I was reassigned. Come this way and tell me what you like to drink with your breakfast. Tea? Coffee?” Lillian drops her voice. “I’m sure I could sneak you a mimosa once every so often.”
Reassigned from where? How many other household staff does Hades have, and where do they work? Who are they working for? Does he have other women here? The questions explode like fireworks at the front of my mind across a dark backdrop of jealousy. I let them fizzle out without saying anything.
A... mimosa?
Is she joking?
“Anything but herbal tea.” If I have to keep drinking herbal tea, then I’d rather close my eyes and depart from the world. My mother didn’t believe in caffeine. Rising at dawn, yes. Caffeine, no. Fresh morning air—that’s the thing I’ll miss. The dew beneath my feet. The soft calls of birds. None of that is available here. “I’ve had coffee a few times, and I liked it.”
She’s still wearing a small, sly grin, as if the two of us are close friends and she doesn’t work for the man who... owns me. He as good as owns me. Lillian doesn’t go far. She leads me across the room toward a hallway that’s narrower than the one outside this room, but not by much. The lights adjust for us as we reach the threshold and go down the hall.
Lillian puts her hand flat against the first door on the right. “This is your closet. I’ll take care of it for you. If there’s anything you ever need, all you have to do is tell me, and I’ll have it repaired or replaced depending on your preference.” Another door, on the left. “The bathroom.”
“This is a suite, not… not a separate bedroom, or a….” I don’t remember anything about a suite in the contract. Every breath I take erases more of the words on the page from my mind. Fear is a slippery thing. It puts itself between you and everything you think you should know, and it pops up again and again, like a hydra that never loses all its heads. “I thought….”
“You thought you might be kept down in some empty cell?”
I whip my head around to look at her, blood fleeing from my lips, leaving them numb and buzzing. “Does he do that?” I’m thinking of Decker, wishing I could run to wherever he is. Wishing I could put my hands on his face and make sure he’s still drawing breaths. I’m thinking of myself too. “Are there... people in a dungeon here?”
Her eyes search mine and she nods, the movement barely there. “A place of this size has to have somewhere for people to be... kept. If necessary.” Lillian reaches down, takes my hand, and gives it a brief squeeze. “If it’s any consolation, I don’t think that’s where you’re headed. Mr. Hades isn’t in that kind of business.”
“What kind of business?”
She presses her lips together. “How much do you know about him?”
“I know he’s ruthless.” One word slips out, then another, until they become a stream I can’t stop. “I know he’s mean.” My eyes fill with tears. “My mother always told me that if he ever found me, he’d kill me. I never knew why. I still don’t know why. I just know he’s the kind of man who could take someone’s life without even thinking about it. Without even a second of regret.” Pain presses in on my lungs until it’s hard to take a full breath. “I shouldn’t be telling you this at all.” I turn my face away and wipe the back of my hand across my cheeks, swiping away the tears. “You’re…. You work for him.” Another surge of horror. “You might go and repeat everything I’ve said, and then—”
Lillian takes both my hands and squeezes hard. Hard enough that I let out a yelp. Her dark eyes look like thunderstorms in miniature. The pain clears my head, makes it easier to breathe. She drops my hands.
“I do work for Mr. Hades,” she says softly. “But I’m assigned to you. I’m your personal assistant. I can do your hair, get you something to eat. Whatever you need.” Lillian laughs lightly. “Basically, my job is to keep you happy.” She screws up her lips. “Listen. I won’t tell your secrets. My job is to help you, not spy on you.”
The look on her face makes me laugh. “I hope not. Since I just told you a bunch of... highly personal information.”
“Is there anything else that’s bothering you?” She widens her dark eyes, the picture of concern. “Because we can talk about it, if you want.” Lillian glances back toward the main bedroom, toward the door. It’s closed. No sign of anyone approaching. “I won’t say anything.”
A worry that’s burrowed itself down in the center of my gut blooms. Should I tell her? Should I say anything? Because if she’s lying, then Hades will hear every word. I saw him last night. He could retaliate, and it would all be over. But it could all be over anyway, and I have no way of knowing if this is for nothing. It makes a difference. Even if my promises are written in ink and set in stone, it makes a difference.
“There is something.” My heart pounds, pulse so loud in my ears that for a moment I can’t hear my own breath. “I’m not sure if there’s anything that can be done, anything that you—” The words get choked off by fear. I swallow it back. “I’m here, because....” How do I explain this to another person, much less a woman who’s getting paid to be with me by Hades himself? I start again. “I made a deal. A... trade.
A man I was with...” A flare of anger almost succeeds at burning through my fear, but not quite. What the hell was Decker doing, going into that train car? Why couldn’t he have just stuck to the plan? He was always so worried that I wouldn’t stick to the plan, that I’d mess something up by taking matters into my own hands, and now look at us.
Well... look at me. Maybe he’s already been buried under the ground, and I didn’t save him after all. The thought of all that dirt pressing down on him makes me feel like I’ve been buried too. It extinguishes my anger and replaces it with a creeping sadness, like a lungful of water.
“Did he cross Mr. Hades?” Lillian prompts. There’s no sting in her voice, but I sense a certain urgency. She’s right. If Hades comes back in the middle of this conversation, I can’t imagine it will go well. “Was that the trade?”
“I traded myself to save him,” I say quickly. “The last I saw, some of Hades’ men were dragging him away. I don’t know if they put him on the train with us, or… or where he went.” Or if they slit his throat. Or if they snapped his neck and left his body in the woods by the tracks. Or if they hauled him here and threw him off the mountain. It’s better not to think of it. Thinking of it makes my balance weak and unreliable. “Is there any way—”
“I’ll see what I can find out.” Lillian gives me an encouraging smile. “And don’t worry. Your secret is my secret, and I don’t tell secrets.”
I blow out a breath, trying to slow my racing heart. Should I have taken the risk? It’s too late now.
Lillian pats down the apron she wears over her black skirt. “There’s one more room to show you. Would you like to see it now or later?”
I want to move. “Now is good. Please, show me now.”
She moves down the hall toward the final door at the end of the hall and opens it. Every heartbeat is ready to burst out of my veins and explode me into nothing. I’ve seen what kinds of rooms Hades has. I have no doubt this will be another place where he can have people... do things to me. Or do them himself.
“Miss?”
“Please,” I say automatically. “Call me Persephone.” It’s only once I’ve spoken that I realize I’ve been squeezing my eyes shut. They’re only open enough to keep me from running face-first into a wall.
“Persephone.” Lillian’s voice coaxes me into opening them all the way. “This is the library.”
Chapter Sixteen
Hades
The diamond mines are the farthest I can get from Persephone. They also happen to be the closest source of people who require correction in any number of ways. But stalking through the mines doesn’t help the burning in my blood. It does nothing to tame this... emotion stampeding through my veins. An intolerable emotion. One that grows with every second that passes.
The morning bleeds by, then the afternoon, and evening. As much as I relish the terror in their eyes, there is, unfortunately, a limit. There’s a limit for me too, though none of them will ever know that. I stay until Conor shoves me in the direction of the exits, away from the floodlights that keep the work illuminated. I can feel the effects of it beginning at the far reaches of my mind. If it gets worse—
I’m not fucking thinking about what happens when it gets worse. Not now.
The main thing is that I don’t want to pull my whole fucking enterprise down on my own head. What a waste it would be—all those painstaking deals, all that insolence crushed beneath my heel. All of that can’t come to nothing.
Not today.
The news of my mood has clearly spread through the staff. All of them scurry out of my path on the way back to my private wing. Not one of those cowards is in sight by the time I get inside.
I slam the door to my office and pace behind my desk. Back out toward the door. Back to the desk. If I had less self-control, I’d pull everything off the shelves and rip it apart. I need the destruction like I need air and water.
What happened in that room… it could be my undoing, as much as it is hers.
I’ve touched Persephone before. It should have been as meaningless as it’s ever been, with every other woman I’ve taken to my bed. But it wasn’t. It fucking wasn’t. And I don’t know whether it was the press of her head against my chest or the sounds she made with my fingers on her naked flesh. I don’t know if it was the way she looked completely clothed as part of my household, not a stitch on her from anywhere else. She tried so fucking hard to please me, and not only because she was afraid.
I saw her.
Fuck.
Persephone is right to be afraid. I’m a dangerous man. I’m not dangerous to her, at least not in the way that makes her tremble. I won’t hurt her any more than is pleasurable. I could never kill her. I know it now, in stark black and white.
I sit down heavily behind the desk and run my hands over my face then slap my hand down on the switch that controls the lights in the room. It’s gotten bad today. Worse than ever before. The two lamps in my office still have the last of the low-wattage bulbs. They’re the only ones I haven’t replaced. They’ll have to go. I curl up a hand into a fist and stop myself from smashing them.
In the dark, I let my eyes settle. Conor pushes his nose against my knee then rests his head on top of my thigh. I don’t have to see to lean back in my chair and continue controlling myself moment by moment. And I don’t have to see to answer my cell phone when it rings.
“What?”
“I need you to search the mountain.” Zeus sounds like he’s walking fast, and I don’t care at all where he’s going. “Persephone’s not anywhere in the city, as far as I can tell, and I have people everywhere.”
“I love when you call me to make demands,” I croon into the phone. “Especially when you know it’s pointless. She’s not here.”
“There are only a few places she could have gone.” My brother’s voice is harried. “If she left on the train, then—”
“Listen to yourself.” I tip my head back and close my eyes, hating how fucking useless it makes me feel. I take that feeling by the throat and crush it until I can’t feel it anymore. I want him to keep her name out of his mouth. I want him to lose my number, forget I exist. “The girl left, did she not? It’s none of my business if a grown woman wants to leave her mother’s house. And frankly, you obnoxious asshole, I don’t see why you care at all.”
“Don’t you?” Now he’s incredulous, and I can almost see his face contorted into disbelief. “You of all people should have a stake in this.”
“I have other priorities.” The desk was built to withstand me. It doesn’t budge when I brace my hand against it and push until the wood threatens to cut into my palm. “This matter doesn’t concern me. And now you’ve brought it up twice in one day. If it’s that important to you, then come here in person.”
Zeus has never set foot here. He calls it the Underworld, and the nickname became so pervasive that eventually I had to take control of it myself. The worthless fucker. Always with his hands and his dick where they don’t belong, causing chaos wherever he goes.
“I might have to, if you’re going to be so unhelpful.”
“Unhelpful?” I laugh at him. I know he hates it, so I let him hear exactly how much I’m enjoying it. “Your little empire in the city would be nothing without me. Are you sure you want to upset our special relationship just because Demeter’s daughter stepped out?”
This will have gotten him where it hurts. He hates to admit that our businesses have a mutual dependence, though on my end it’s more out of convenience than anything else. But he needs me. The city needs me, even if they’ll never admit it out loud.
“If you don’t want me to pay a visit, then come to the city. I have some men here who might give me more information if you become involved.”
Zeus wants to play the good man in every equation. My lip curls, disgust welling up from an endless supply. If he weren’t hiding such a disgusting personality, I might find something in him to admire. But it’s only a convenient disguise. A handsome face and a tr
ap, all in one. I don’t want him here. I have no plans to ever let him into my private quarters, but there’s no telling what he might try with my staff. If he came here, there’s a chance, however small....
“I’m not agreeing to anything.
“Neither is Demeter. She’s come a little... unhinged.”
A chill creeps along the base of my spine, and Conor growls. Persephone has only been with me a matter of hours. If Zeus is lying to get under my skin, then it’s best not to react in the slightest. But if he’s telling the truth, things could get personally uncomfortable for me. I grind my teeth together.
“Again, this is entirely useless information.” It’s the most important information I’ve ever received. My hackles are up, the hairs on the back of my neck standing straight out. It would be easier to tell if Zeus was lying if I could see him in person. He probably knows that. Under any other circumstance, I wouldn’t care what Zeus is pretending to know. But the stakes are higher now. Zeus. Demeter. Me, with Persephone here, down the hall in that scrap of lingerie. A tangled fucking web indeed.
“Come to the city and help me.” I hate Zeus, I truly do. “It’ll only take a day or two.”
I laugh out loud. “You think it would take me two days to extract information from some weak asshole? It wouldn’t take me two hours.”
Zeus chuckles like we’re two brothers sharing a pleasant moment, and I glare at the opposite wall. “Then come enjoy the city. I’ll get you some women. Maybe it would improve your mood.”
Acid burns the back of my throat. No. Fuck no. I don’t want any of Zeus’s women or the restaurants he goes to so people can fawn over him like a charming prince. But what is the alternative? He can’t come here. I’d have to kill him before I let him set foot this close to Persephone. I wouldn’t mind killing Zeus. I would mind the general upheaval that would follow, in that it would be the kind of distraction that’s impossible to ignore.